Science Lab at Home

Saturday 6th March

10:30am - 3pm

Free, Virtual Event

Booking Essential

To celebrate British Science Week, The Higgins Bedford has teamed up with local providers for a day filled with free hands-on science, animal encounters and interactive fun, ready to inspire the scientists of the future!

Join Little Science Lab for a hands-on experiment to explore the world of sound and make your own whistles. You will need to collect pre-prepared kits with the materials needed for the experiments to join in from Bedford Central library or Kempston Library through the Select and Collect Service. Click here to book.

Teaching Talons will be running interactive animal encounters on Zoom, offering the chance to meet amazing animals and explore the natural world. Click here to book.

There will also be a live Q&A session with Dr Catherine Ungeprapakorn, who worked with the team at Cranfield University to search for life on Mars. Discover more about the possibility of aliens, what they could look like and how to find out, then design your own experiment to detect life. Click here to book.

Find out more about the Science Lab at Home programme here.

Please note that places are limited and some sessions are already fully booked. We recommend that you book as soon as possible to avoid disappointment as places are offered on a first come first served basis. 

The Boy and the Bear Film Premiere

Saturday 13th February

Free, Virtual Event

Ahead of the OUTing the Past Festival and as part of LGBT+ History Month, there will be an opportunity to view The Boy and the Bear, a film by critically acclaimed performer, author, playwright, singer and musician, Rose Collis.

Drawn from personal testimony, letters, diaries and archive materials, explore the personal and political journey taken by a lesbian and her closest gay male friend (who both came out in 1978) from 1977 until 1983. The film takes place against a backdrop of, and in the context of, early Gay Pride marches and other activism, ‘agit-prop’ gay/feminist theatre, the London gay scene of the 1970s and the early days of the AIDS epidemic. 

The link to the film will be posted on The Higgins Bedford website on Saturday 13th February and will be available to view for one week. Rose will be hosting a live Q&A session for the film as part of the OUTing the Past Festival on Saturday 20th February. Find the full programme here.

Craft Club

Thursday 11th February 

10:30am - 12pm

Free, Virtual Event

Treat yourself to Craft Club with local illustrator, Katie Allen. A relaxing, creative session for adults, where you can learn new crafty techniques, re-visit old ones, or just enjoy some colourful creative inspiration. 

At this first session, we will be looking at collage.

To join in you will need:

• Scissors
• Glue
• A mixture of papers- anything you can get from recycling magazines, packaging, wrapping paper etc.

To attend, please email gemma.hutton@bedford.gov.uk to receive the zoom link. Please keep an eye on our website for details on upcoming sessions here.

Story Telling Sunday

Sunday 14th & 28th February

2pm - 3:30pm

Free, Virtual Event

Stay connected with Story Telling Sundays, led by Satwinder Kaur. Create and tell your own imaginary story inspired by an artwork or object from the collections at The Higgins Bedford. Ideal for those who may be feeling isolated, lonely or who want to be creative.

To attend, please email vicki.blair@bedford.gov.uk to receive the Zoom link. Please keep an eye on our website for details on upcoming sessions here.

For Storytelling Week, we have made two videos telling the story of Colonel Frederick Burnaby. The famous Victorian Bedfordian was known for his great strength and daring, world-wide travelling adventures, hot air ballooning escapades and eventful military career. A ‘larger than life’ man, who was very much of his time. (Suitable for ages 7+)

Watch the videos here. 

Illustration by David Litchfield.